Cracks
by Manda-chan
Summary: They fill the emptiness with darkness, because they cannot have the light. They take and they hurt because suffering must be shared to be enjoyed. -Kraehe/Raven!Fakir- Mature.


**A/N**: I... honestly don't know exactly what spawned this. I woke up this morning and then couldn't get back to sleep because this dark, angsty idea for a fic was invading my mind and refusing to let me get any more rest. So I did the only sensible thing I could think of and got up to write all of it out.

**About this fic**: I said dark and angsty and I wasn't kidding. This is rated mature for _sexual themes_ and a dark tone and I am not kidding. If this is not your thing, please hit the back button. Also, though this is centered on Kraehe and Raven!Fakir, there is a definitely layer of one-sided Rue/Mytho and Fakir/Ahiru underneath.

**Summary**: They fill the emptiness with darkness, because they cannot have the light. They take and they hurt because suffering must be shared to be enjoyed. Kraehe/Raven!Fakir. Mature.

* * *

**Cracks**

* * *

It was not weakness that drove her to make the decision against her father's wishes.

That is what Kraehe tells herself until she believes it. She did not take the prince's shard of love and did not bathe it in Raven's blood, but it wasn't because she was afraid or because she was hesitant. It was not even out of love for him, she swears.

No, it is because she truly believes that _Fakir_ deserves to suffer the most. He thinks himself noble by pretending that he can protect, by pretending he is not useless and plagued by his shortcomings. His eyes had always been shadowed, full of fear and anger. The darkness within him needed to be freed.

That is why Kraehe found a way to feed him the blood of Monster Raven. That is why she has no regrets.

Her crimson eyes follow him obsessively in the days after, only because she wants to see it for herself - she wants to watch him succumb to the darkness that had invaded her very heart and soul since she was a child.

She wants to see him _break_.

And it is not a subtle change. At least, it would not look that way to someone who already knew how it felt and what it did to your very being.

Fakir struggles, but he does not put up much of a fight. The shadows in his eyes grow darker each day. Any resistance that she witnesses is feeble - desperate, but aimless, as if he already knows that he cannot win, that a useless knight cannot triumph against the cracks in his own heart.

Perhaps the darkness in him was already stronger than the raven princess originally thought. He is spreading his new black wings before he even knows how to fly.

And Kraehe is proud. Not of him, not of her father's blood, but of herself for causing the knight's true fall - for changing his very _fate_ with her own hands.

She has struck at Fakir's weakness in a way that is far beyond that silly, pointless death the knight feared. What need had she of claws to tear his body in two when she could rip his soul and heart in two, instead?

He suffers and will continue to suffer with every breath he takes.

Just as he deserves, she thinks with cruel satisfaction. Just as he deserves.

* * *

He said a name, just once after the first time they unleashed upon each other in a frenzy of sweat and fire. It could have been her imagination. The breath was so soft and almost too indecipherable to liken to a word.

But Kraehe already knows. She sees the way that he watches that girl when no one else is looking. His hair may be shielding his eyes and his head may be lowered, but she can see the way that his eyes are intent upon the redhead on the dance floor as she trips and flails her arms, completely out of sync with the other students. His eyes follow her. They see no one else.

Kraehe knows that look in his eyes. It is hungry, desiring, _wanting_...

But he will not take. His hand will stay a fist upon the floor, knuckles white. Even with the raven's blood infecting him and permeating his blood stream, it is not yet enough. Fakir is still a coward. A part of him still fears tainting that which he longs to possess.

That will pass with time. Once, she was like that, as well. She thought she could be normal and still hold the light, still grasp the intangible strands of it in her fingertips.

Only a fool believes in such things.

There is no Rue. There is only a raven. There is only black feathers and selfishness and pain.

Fakir will discover that for himself. Notions of protecting and of honor will be obliterated and he will give in. He will suffer every step of the way and she will be watching, soaking in that misery with relish as he loses the battle within himself.

That is what she wants.

He is weak.

He must break.

He must break before she does.

* * *

Fakir is never gentle. And she does not want him to be.

Kraehe does not want to think of Mytho, who is regaining more of his heart, who is becoming brighter and more vibrant and _alive_ every day. She does not want to see him smiling at Tutu and thanking her. She does not want to see the blush on their cheeks, the shy, longing glances between them...

She wants escape and the raven knight wants it too. They do not ask for it, of course - they take. Ruthless and selfish, they steal from each other. They take and they hurt because suffering must be shared to be enjoyed.

It feels good. Having his blood on her sharp, manicured nails, feeling her blood stain his... she wants this.

And it is not because she is afraid. Fakir is the coward, she repeats vehemently. He longs for escape because he will not take what he truly desires. Not yet.

She... she can have Mytho any time that she wants. He is still incomplete. He does not belong to Tutu. She can steal him away whenever she wishes. The light is not too much yet. She can still...

That thought fades on a moan when he thrusts inside of her. It is not as painful as she wants it to be anymore. It is not enough, but it is all that she has.

"_Harder_," she rasps. And he answers - not to her, but to the desire to close the gap that aches. He lets loose upon her because there is no one else.

No one else that he will bring himself to touch - to taint. He still fools himself into believing that he can protect that girl this way.

_Yes, he is a coward_, she thinks again. And she bites his neck viciously.

She is using him. She is not afraid. She wants escape but she does not _need_ it like he does. She just wants to feel him suffer. To suffer, to suffer, to suffer...

It is not the love of the prince. It is lust, it fills her with more darkness, and it is _not enough_.

Gritting her teeth against his skin, she rolls her hips up frantically, taking him in. His fingers are fists in her dark locks, pulling and yanking as he pleases. He jerks his hips down into her, groaning and swallowing thickly.

He is thinking about what he can't have, she tells herself. He is in pain with his pleasure. He can't touch what he wants.

All that he can have is her. He has no choice.

She does, Kraehe insists to herself. This is only temporary. This is only an escape that she desires. She is clutching to him through lust for his darkness and infecting him more with her own.

He needs her.

She does not need him.

* * *

Sometimes, they are done in minutes. Other times, they go for hours, until not a single drop of desire is left.

This time, it is the latter.

Her darkness is famished today and Fakir is not providing enough to sate her. But he has not given up. Not for her sake, of course, but something must have happened. His simmering rage is more intense than usual, the marks he is leaving relentlessly upon her pale skin will take time heal.

But the marks from the darkness in him will never heal. And that reminder is enough to push her onward with a grim satisfaction.

What she has done to him cannot be undone. He will suffer more because he is closer to breaking.

And she will see that when it happens. She will watch him snap beneath the weight like a twig beneath the clawed foot of a raven. He cannot handle what she has endured all of these years.

Weak, weak, weak.

But he is no longer a useless knight. She can use him.

The pleasure-pain between them is addictive. It is like a drug she takes willingly - always willingly. And that is the fault of the darkness inside of her, anyway. It is in her blood. It desires and seeks that which it can take.

He is a substitute. Not nearly as satisfying as it would be to have that which she wants above all else, but...

"_Weak_," she taunts against his lips, feeling the curves of her own twist into a wicked smile. Her fingertips are almost playful as they dance across his chest, which is already littered with scratch marks of her own making. "You need this."

It is him, it is always him who needs. And she will remind him.

He does not answer. There is only a sharp intake of his breath before he is devouring her lips. His hands are on her breasts, squeezing, grasping, hurting.

Yes, this is what she wants. The pain feels good. It tingles, it grants heat. It floods her.

She can make him angry, she can make him need...

Kraehe nips at his tongue as it forces its way into her mouth and reaches one hand behind him, her long fingers encasing one cheek of his backside and jerking him forward into her.

He is already hard again and throbbing shamelessly. He needs her.

And she is only wet from the darkness of lust, not the need to be filled.

As if in a frantic attempt to fool himself into believing he has any control, she feels Fakir roughly spin her around and pin her to the floor, pressing hard into her back and rubbing his engorged length up against her rear. She gasps and the haze settles over her eyes, darkening her vision. She is soaked and ready, ready to savor every nuance of his pain and suffering.

Her back arches when he shoves himself inside and impales her to the very core. For a moment, she sees a flash of gold eyes and she stills, her body shaking-

And it's gone. _It was never there_, she assures herself as she bucks backward toward hot skin.

His fingers are like vices as they rise and clutch tight into her shoulders, pushing her down to the cold floor. He grunts and groans aloud like an animal, fingers digging into her skin, shaft pushing hard and thick through her lubricated entrance.

He blames her. With every curse, every rough slam of his hips into her backside, he knows that she is the cause. She tainted him. She released his darkness and watches avidly as it consumes him.

And yet he needs her this way. He needs her and he cannot deny it.

She likes to be needed. That much, Kraehe can admit without guilt. As long as he's desperate and angry and she feels that endless suffering, those cries that will never be heard, she can sleep soundly at night.

She is not alone in the darkness.

* * *

They never dance together. That is something that neither of them will share, no matter how deep the darkness becomes, no matter how bleak the days, no matter how high the tide of helplessness, or how fierce the desperation.

Perhaps they associate it with love. And there is only room for lust between them. There is only wanting and taking.

That is all they do. They are merciless upon one another. They take out their rage, their frustrations and despair, and they force each other to feel the depths of their pain.

They engage only out of need to fill a void. And they cannot fill it - they know they cannot.

But they never stop trying.

They only have each other. It is a truth that neither one of them will acknowledge or admit, no matter how great that hole of unfillable emptiness becomes.

The light is too bright for either of them touch. There is no place in the light for the darkness.

Darkness must seek the escape of darkness.

Until one of them breaks.

* * *

The light becomes brighter every day. It is too painful, she thinks. It is more painful than the raven's blood because she cannot touch it with her sullied hands. The darkness that resides within her is running out of shadows to watch it from, to reach, to beg...

_No_, she insists. She is not weak. Fakir is weak.

He will break first. She will not.

She _refuses_. The light is torture and it is suffocating her with a golden-eyed gaze that she could drown in forever, but she refuses.

Her scathing taunts increase. She attacks Fakir where she knows that it will hurt the most. She reminds him of what he cannot have, what he cannot touch, what he's afraid of. She never lets him believe that he will find solace, even in her darkness.

_Suffer_, she wants him to suffer. Suffer and break apart into tiny pieces before her eyes.

His fate is hers. She took it. She molded it and she intends for it to reach the conclusion that she wants for this story.

His darkness will tear him apart, he will break Tutu, and the prince will have no one left to love but her.

It is perfect. It is the ending she desires.

And she will wait. It hurts and she is growing weary and impatient, but she will wait.

She will wait as long as it takes until he shatters.

* * *

**A/N**: And that's it. I kind of wrote this in a different writing style than I normally would, but I decided not to question it. I think the style suited this idea in particular (though you are free to disagree). I understand that this pairing is probably not many people's cup of tea, to say the least, but please don't leave me comments that just bash the pairing. That's all I ask. I felt inspired to write something a little different and we all get urges like that once in awhile, right?

Feedback, comments and criticisms alike are very welcome and encouraged!

As always, thank you for taking the time to read my work.


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